At times, especially during the high arc of election cycles, we are prompted by others to identify ourselves--are you a Republican or a Democrat? Conservative or Liberal? Tea Party or Person-trying-to-take-away-my-government-by-trying-to-do-something-about-the-nation's-problems? It is part of the explaining the world thing--if we think we can categorize others, we can cope with them, avoid offending them, anticipate them, understand them, control them. We can use labels to diminish, simplify, judge, demonize and destroy.
In lesser ways, we do this, too. What do you do for a living? Is this your boyfriend/girlfriend,husband/wife? What church do you go to? Did you go to college? These are all ways we attempt to gather information which allows us to categorize others.
That is probably the second best way to learn about someone. Instead of "what" why don't we ask the more pertinent question: Who are you? After all, isn't that what we want to know?
I can see asking the Who rather than the What creating difficulty in our social exchanges. We are so conditioned to guard our information, color impressions, etc. in order for the answer to the What question to help us, or at least not hurt us. Giving useful, honest answers to the Who question takes some thought and some practice, but I bet it would help us get along a little bit better.
Who are you?
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